At the
July Festival Radio France/Montpellier, the
feeling of disarray hung in the air like fog.
Last year the festival was cancelled in a
wave of strikes by performing arts technicians
and backstage personnel. It was back in business
this year thanks to concessions to the unions.
But ultimately, there was only a feeling of
being at loose ends. The much-anticipated
performance of the 1852 work, Giuseppe
of Pietro Raimondi (which, remarkably, featured
three different oratorios performed at the
same time!) was rescheduled for the following
year for vague reasons. The final theater
work of the pen of Richard Strauss, Des
Esels Schatten, proved to be of little
consequence and a "banned" opera of Antoine
Mariotte, another treatment of Wilde’s play,
Salomé, exhibited a painful
lack of inspiration.

The
event has many fans who look forward to the
festival, now in its 24th year.
The daring, often offbeat programming often
helped revive unjustly forgotten works. An
example: the opera Macbeth of the Swiss
composer Ernest Bloch. Now mostly known for
his eloquent work for cello and orchestra,
Schelomo, the concert performance of
his opera at the festival’s 1997 edition,
and the subsequent recording, caused many
to reassess Bloch’s skill in composing for
the theater. This fine work is on the list
at the Frankfurt Opera this season.

The
festival’s creator and director since the
beginning has been René Koering. His
long association with Radio France has given
this festival a high profile and most of its
major concerts are broadcast on Radio France’s
classical music station, France Musiques.
Strauss has always been central to the planning
in recent years and includes a notable Daphné
(1993), Guntram (1997) and an Elektra
from 1995, featuring Behrens and Varnay that
is still talked about with gushy reverence.
Available on CD is a wondrous discovery, the
1998 revival of Le Livre de la jungle
(Jungle Book) of Charles Koechelin. The list
of works so far performed, including Ernest
Reyer’s Wagnerian-style opera Sigurd
and Oscar Strauss’ cheeky Ces sacrés
Nibelungen,is impressive by any
measure.

Des
Esels Schatten (The Donkey’s Shadow) is
a work Strauss composed as a present for the
school his grandson attended, the Abbey of
Ettal in Bavaria, in 1948. Taken from a 1774
satire which takes place in 400 BC Greece,
it is thin on humor and lacking any significant
satirical bite. Yet the drama, with Strauss’
incidental music which accompanies it (about
25 minutes or so), was fully translated into
French, the music re-orchestrated and given
two staged performances at the Charles Garnier-designed
Opéra Comédie. Koering saw fit
to add his own contemporary touches like an
introduction of a Batman theme from the movie
and the appropriation of a well-known advertising
jingle from French TV. But even Strauss borrowed
music from his Ariadne auf Naxos to
fill up the time. Slovakian conductor Juraj
Valcuha and the Orchestre National de Montpellier
played what little music there was with gusto
and tenor Jean-Luc Viala was the high spirited
donkey-driver, Antrax. Fanciful décor
and costumes were by Makhi Xenakis but all
the effort expended produced but few laughs
and ultimately, as the evening drew on, only
tedium.

The
connection with Strauss and the Mariotte opera
Salomé was that Strauss’ legal
team sent a letter to the French composer
warning of legal action if the opera was performed
as Strauss claimed exclusive right to the
Wilde play. He finally relented and the opera,
composed almost simultaneously as the better-known
version by Strauss, was finally produced in
Lyon in 1908. Mariotte was a naval officer
who abandoned his career for composition.
From the experience of the concert version
of his opera on July 21 at Montpellier‘s modern
Salle Berlioz, he should have stuck with his
original calling. His drama is also in one
act, running about 90 minutes and, not including
the fuss over religion, well focused on the
four lead characters. The story was effectively
framed and the orchestration was thick but
one waited in vain for even a hint of creative
inspiration or engaging melody. The program
indicated the music was closer to Debussy
than to Strauss but this listener detected
little to stamp this as from the Impressionist
School. It seemed to be generic, formula music-making
that stormed and swooned to no effect. This
opera makes minor French composers from the
period, like Vincent d’Indy (one of the composer’s
teachers) seem, in comparison, like Mozart.

It was
not for lack of effort that this fell flat.
French mezzo Nora Gubisch in the title role
gave a passionate, engaged performance which
reinforced again her credentials as a major
interpretive artist. Baritone Laurent Naouri
sang strongly his Iokanaan and Swiss mezzo
Julia Juon was a Hérodiade to be reckoned
with. Friedmann Layer, Music Director of the
Orchestre National de Montpellier, played
the notes as well as could be expected. Many
of the same cast will return next year when
both the Strauss and Mariotte operas will
be back to back in the regular season in Montpellier.

As if
to show that not every unknown composer deserves
his fate, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens
Lyriques, gave a concert performance of Alessandro
Melani’s early (1669) treatment of the Don
Giovanni story, L’Empio punito. Performed
at the Opera on July 23, it proved to be a
frequently engaging retelling. Melani was
at his most moving when voices had a chance
to blend in duets and trios. Staunchly supported
by Rousset and his eight member band of historically
informed performers, Anna-Lise Sollied sang
the role of Atamira with a voice that seemed
to be more appropriate for Wagner and Strauss.
Young French soprano Gaële Le Roi continues
to impress in the rich Don role, Acrimante.

The
awesome presence of Russian piano virtuoso
Evgeny Kissin provided the only fireworks
of the week of festival performances I saw.
Here playing duets with the young cellist
Alexander Kniazev, every inch his equal in
virtuosity, it was a program (Brahms, Shostakovich,
Rachmaninov) to remember. Other concert series,
in addition to orchestras and soloists, were
a significant series of emerging artists.
The young Cuban pianist I caught, Mauricio
Vallina, might be advised to go back and listen
to recordings of his earlier compatriot Jorge
Bolet. He will hear a pianist whose virtuosity
served the music, not the other way around.

Next
summer is the 25th anniversary
of the festival. One can only hope that the
works to be featured have more musical meat
on their bones than those of this year. A
Strauss work of no more than academic interest
and an opera that would be been better left
unheard are not worthy standard bearers of
a major French music festival.

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